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By Lynn Sweet
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Posted: 05/24/07 06:55 PM [ET] |
Just how will House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) navigate in the coming days? A war-funding bill without timelines for getting troops out of Iraq and an immigration overhaul that is less compassionate than anticipated expose rifts among Democrats in both chambers.
Pelosi has the extra headache of Democratic defections on an ethics and lobbying bill up for a vote today, with the measure as of Wednesday to be sent to the floor diluted and without key provisions.
The Democrats have been in charge of the House and Senate since January, and the developments of this week dramatically show the limits of the power of the leadership in both chambers. With thin majorities and the inability to muster bipartisan veto-proof roll calls, there is only so much they can do.
On Iraq: Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is set to deliver to President Bush a supplemental funding bill minus a timeline for U.S. troops to come home — without, as he put it on Tuesday, “a surrender date.”
The office of House GOP leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Wednesday sent out a memo with newspaper headlines full of active verbs describing the situation for Democrats when it comes to the Iraq bill: Democrats “relent,” “split,” “bow,” “capitulate,” “back down” and “blink.
Pelosi is unlikely to support the Iraq compromise she helped craft. “I’m not likely to vote for something that doesn’t have a timetable of a goal of coming home,” she said. Worse for her, her own base — the liberal and progressive Democratic community, especially the netroots — are going after all members — GOP and Democrats — who will vote for the war supplemental.
One group, the Americans Against Escalation in Iraq — a coalition whose members include the Service Employees International Union, MoveOn.org’s political arm and the Center for American Progress fund — are urging a “no” vote. The organization is hiring additional field staff to hound any member — Democrat or Republican — who votes for the funding bill.
Democrats don’t deserve all those harsh headlines. The reality is they don’t own a veto-proof Congress. They did make progress. Bush is on a shorter leash. Proposals by Sen. John Warner (R-Va.) in the bill call for Bush in July and September to report on benchmarks being imposed on the Iraqi government and military. And Democrats will have other legislative openings later in the year with the defense authorization bill.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) argues, “I don’t think there’s any way you could stretch things, whatever we decide to do in this legislation, as a defeat. For heaven sakes, look where we’ve come.’’
On immigration: Again, the Democrats face a revolt from the left because the proposed immigration deal makes it harder to reunite extended families and creates a point system for getting in the U.S. that favors educated and English-speaking immigrants. Even the father of the legislation, Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), said in a statement, “The bill isn’t exactly the way I would have written it, but it is a strong compromise.”
On ethics/lobbying changes: Democratic House leaders realize that their majority is threatened if they can’t deliver a bill
with muscle. But even their combined firepower can’t get into the bill provisions to disclose bundlers and AstroTurf lobbyists and extend revolving-door bans to two years.
A tough week indeed for the Democrats.
Sweet is the Washington bureau chief for the Chicago Sun-Times. E-mail:
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